Trust and Scandal: a Tale of Two Theories

Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies Volume 32 Article 7 2015 Trust and Scandal: A Tale of Two Theories Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sigma Part of the International and Area Studies Commons, and the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation (2015) "Trust and Scandal: A Tale of Two Theories," Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies: Vol. 32 , Article 7. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/sigma/vol32/iss1/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Trust and Scandal: A Tale of Two Theories by James Martherus “I am not a crook.” Those five words are burned into the nation’s memory. Pres- ident Nixon was under investigation after five men were arrested trying to break into the Watergate office complex, where the Democratic National Committee was headquartered. Evidence was found that the burglary was funded using money from Nixon’s re-election campaign. This led to cover-ups at high levels within the FBI, CIA, and the White House. Nixon was implicated in these cover-ups and was eventually charged with obstruction of justice, abuse of authority, and defiance of committee subpoenas. It was then that Nixon uttered the infamous phrase, “I am not a crook.” He was not the first public official to be involved in a major scandal, and he would not be the last. Just over twenty years later, President Clinton was involved in at least one affair, with intern Monica Lewinsky. Again, the nation was rocked as Clinton was impeached on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. The State of Utah has recently experienced its own scandal. Attorney General John Swallow took office in January 2013 and almost immediately came under investigation by the FBI (Gehrke 2013a). The FBI investigated whether Swallow had con- spired to help an indicted businessman, Jeremy Johnson, avoid a lawsuit by the FTC (Carlton 2013). The investigation did not lead to any charges against Swallow, but it did provoke further inquiry by the lieutenant governor’s office and the Utah House (Gehrke 2013b; HR9001) about various alleged misconducts including violation of campaign laws. Swallow resigned as Utah’s attorney general in November of that year (Roche and Romboy 2013) and was arrested on various state charges (Crofts 2014). Swallow maintains his innocence, but whether the accusations are true or not, Utah has been rocked by the news. These events provide a unique opportunity to study the effects 28 SIGMA of political scandal on public opinion. Specifically, I present two findings. First, political scandals negatively affect trust in politicians but not in government institutions. Sec- ond, demographics like religion and party identification affect perception of the guilt of the parties involved, because individuals are less likely to believe someone like them could be involved in a scandal. Theory In the 1960s and early 70s, the public trusted the government at levels that seem laughable today. Pew Research found in 1964 that 77 percent of respondents felt they could trust the government “always” or “most of the time.” Since 1964, trust in government has experienced a steady decline, reaching a low of 20 percent in 2014 (Pew 2014). This decline in trust is not unique to the U.S., but a phenomenon observed in virtually all Western democracies (Dalton 2004; Putnam et al. 2000). Political scientists have recently tried to explain this phenomenon. The literature proposes many theories, most of which focus on the perceptions that government wastes too much, is inefficient, or chooses to spend on the wrong things (Nye et al. 1997; Chanley et al. 2000; Keele 2007; Miller and Borrelli 1991). A smaller group of researchers have studied the effects of political “scandals” on public trust in government. Two theories have emerged as a result of this research: one theory suggests that scandals can negatively affect public confidence in government institutions (i.e., Congress, the Supreme Court, etc.), while the other suggests that scandals have a large effect on confidence in the individuals involved in them but not on the institutions themselves. Shaun Bowler and Jeffrey Karp support the first theory, suggesting that scandals have an effect on the public’s attitudes toward institutions and the political process (2004). They are not alone; many other studies have suggested that corruption can have negative repercussions, not only for public confidence and trust but also for the outcome of elections (see e.g., Anderson and Tverdova 2003; Banducci and Karp 1994; Clausen et al. 2011). Other academics have questioned whether scandal really affects the perception of institutions and find that scandals only affect the individual politicians involved (Clarke et al. 1998; Lanoue and Headrick 1994). For example, Jürgen Maier found that political scandals contribute to a decline of political support for candidates but not a loss of confidence in government institutions (2011). Diminished trust in individual politicians has been observed after Watergate (Yaffee 1999), Iran-Contra (Krosnick and Kinder 1990), and other major scandals, with the notable exception of the Clinton- Lewinsky scandal (Zaller 1998). The idea that scandals do not really affect trust in the democratic process and government institutions has grown more and more popular in recent years. One of the most recent studies in this area attempts to explain this by mak- ing a counterintuitive claim: Scandals may have had a larger impact on public trust in institutions at one point, but the growing frequency of political scandals has caused us to be less affected by them (Kumlin and Esaiasson 2012). 29 MARTHERUS Some research suggests that even for the individuals involved, scandals do not have a huge effect. For example, Stephen Bennet found that during the Clinton- Lewinsky scandal, approval ratings for President Clinton suffered an initial drop but then stayed relatively high. Further, most individuals did not believe the scandal was serious enough to warrant his removal from office (2002; see also Zaller 1998). I am interested in further explaining the effect of scandal on public trust in government officials and institutions. Specifically, I am interested in studying which of the two above theories are more correct. The current literature fails to account for important variables like religion. Utah is unique in that most of its inhabitants are members of one church: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Recently, Utah’s Attorney General John Swallow was involved in a political scandal, where he was accused of accepting bribes, tampering with evidence, and misusing public funds. Swallow also held a leadership position in the Church, providing a unique opportunity to study how religion affects public confidence in government when a scandal has occurred. I asked whether participants have heard of the John Swallow scandal and then measure the levels of public confidence among those who have followed the scandal and those who have not. I also controlled for participants’ religion and activity in that religion to see if religion has an effect on public perception of scandals involving those of their own faith. As a secondary research goal, I plan to study how different demographic factors affect how we view government scandals. Many people tend to trust religious individuals more than nonreligious individuals (Tan 2008). Furthermore, people tend to feel more warmly about people who share their religion than about people from other religions (Putnam 2010). When we trust someone more deeply, a breach of that trust is more devastating. Therefore, those who share John Swallow’s religion will be more likely to lose trust in politicians/government in general after hearing that John Swallow, a prominent member of their church, may have participated in corrupt activities than would an individual who does not share a religion with John Swallow. Further, we tend to trust those who are more like us politically (Lambert et al. 1986), and we find it hard to believe that “our team” would do something unethical. Therefore, those who identify as Republican will be less likely to believe that John Swal- low is guilty than those who identify as Democrats. Considering the above, I have two hypotheses of interest. First, I expect to find that a government scandal will cause individuals to lose trust in individual politicians but not in government institutions. Second, I expect to find that those who are similar to John Swallow (religion, ideology, race, etc.) are less likely to believe that he is guilty of corruption. Methods The data used in this analysis were gathered during the Utah Colleges Exit Poll (hereafter UCEP). The UCEP is conducted biannually on Election Day. About six hundred undergraduate students volunteer as pollsters and are sent to over one 30 SIGMA hundred polling locations throughout the state of Utah. The sample for the poll is drawn by statistics majors and uses a stratified, multimode design. The sample contains four strata, one for each congressional district. Within each stratum, we clustered on voting districts and polling places. In addition to the pollsters located at polling locations, we also collected data from mail-in and early voters through online and telephone surveys. The poll accurately predicted Utah’s major races. For example, in the fourth congressional district, Mia Love garnered 50.0% of the vote, while Doug Owens received 46.8% of the vote. The UCEP called the race for Mia Love with 50.6% to Doug Owens’ 47.0%. All of the survey questions used in this paper are replicated from either a reputable survey research firm (i.e., Pew research) or the Utah Voter Poll.

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